Afternoon Delight: Christian Slater Is Back and Hacking in ‘The Wolf’

What better way to prepare for the fast-approaching weekend than by indulging in the some of the Internet’s most well-done web content? Take advantage of your lunch break and treat yourself to Afternoon Delight, Decider’s carefully curated picks of the best short-form content available on the world wide web. This week we’re spotlighting The Wolf, a new web series from HP Studios starring Christian Slater.

Directed by Lance Acord, who you might know from his gorgeous cinematography in Spike Jonze‘s work, The Wolf follows an unnamed antagonist (Slater) as he cleverly invades the fictional Pierce Arthur Monroe Financial’s network. Just one document left on the printer could bring down the entire company. How, you ask? Well, it turns out that hackers having access to personal information can lead to a company-wide meltdown. Slater’s Wolf proves this to be true after he discovers one of the employees is having a birthday and decides to take advantage of her weakness by sending her an email containing a gift certificate. She prints it, of course, granting him more access and essentially allowing him to destroy the company with ease from the inside. This hacker has no good reason for his sabotage; he simply does it because he can.

We won’t beat around the bush here; yes, it’s an ad for HP’s line of secure printers, but it’s a hell of a well-done series. Much like the way television has become more cinematic, it’s clear that ad campaigns have joined in on the fun, too. Slater is just as enjoyably menacing as he is on Mr. Robot, the cinematography is sleek and stunning, the storytelling is digestible, and the soundtrack is movie caliber. This is one of those inventive instances of storytelling that elevates the standards for advertisers and what it means to have a brand. So get hungry, folks. Because The Wolf is serving up some seriously good content.